It should be remembered that I speak now as someone who gladly took, and cashed, a paycheck from Rupert Murdoch for six years, from 1983 until 1989. It is in that spirit that I now argue that, if the Federal Communications Commission presents that old pirate with the whopping Christmas gift it is apparently preparing to give him, then the president either has lost control of his administration, or he personally has taken leave of his senses. There is no third alternative.

Here's how the FCC described it in a statement released Wednesday afternoon: "FCC Chairman Genachowski today shared a proposal with his colleagues to streamline and modernize media ownership rules, including eliminating outdated prohibitions on newspaper-radio and TV-radio cross ownership. As the commission recognized last year, while the media marketplace is in transition, broadband and new media are not yet available as ubiquitously as traditional broadcast media, and certain protections therefore remain important to promoting competition, diversity, and localism. The proposal promotes media diversity by retaining some of the consolidation limits, and through a number of measures that provide broadcast opportunities for small businesses."

Shouldn't we be aware by now that, when federal bureaucrats start talking about "streamlining" things, and doing away with "outdated prohibitions," sheer unadulterated brigandage is sure to follow? Remember, for example, the elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act was sold as the elimination of outdated regulations that were keeping the financial-services industry from modernizing itself in preparation for a golden new age of wealth creation. All that got modernized as a result were exotic techniques to steal the country's money.

Therefore, I am not comforted by the outburst of genuine Third Wave banality slung around there by chairman Genachowski, especially when I realized that Murdoch is just a short step off stage, salivating at the prospect of gnawing what meat is left off the bones of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, two once-great newspapers currently dead in the fields because that same golden new age of wealth creation resulted in almost three decades in which American newspapers came to be owned by avaricious, bean-counting morons. Murdoch wants both papers, and the only thing keeping this horror at bay are those "outdated prohibitions" that prevent him from owning newspapers and radio and television stations in the same market. Media writer Craig Aaron has been all over this.

There is simply no reason for any country anywhere in the world ever to do favors for Rupert Murdoch ever again. His British operation has been exposed engaging in outright criminality. (And anyone who thinks that criminality stopped in the UK is fooling themselves.) His television network in the United States has turned to outright buffoonery and is starting to stagger in the ratings. He is the Bhopal in any media ecosystem in which he is allowed to flourish. There never has been a better time to break what power he has left.

Instead, it appears that we are going to streamline ourselves right into enhancing his power in minor markets like Chicago and Los Angeles. It appears to me that this ought to be of some concern to an administration on which Mr. Murdoch has painted a bulls-eye since January of 2009. Vengeance is not always a bad thing.